


mapped out by the lines we'll trace

by harperuth



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Misgendering, Trans Character, desmond is kind of a dipshit lbr he wouldn't know gender theory at all, poor understandings of historical medicine but also AC is a scifi franchise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27259126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harperuth/pseuds/harperuth
Summary: “Have all the subjects been men?” Desmond asks before she gets too caught up.“Obviously,” Lucy says, irritation showing on her face, “The target ancestors were all men, we need a genetic match. For all their faults Abstergo knows the difference between X and Y.”“Mm,” Desmond looks to the side, focusing on the view out the windows, “History has a way of getting things wrong.”
Comments: 15
Kudos: 126





	mapped out by the lines we'll trace

**Author's Note:**

> i'm trying not to let assassin's creed take over all my brainworms but. alas. my brain wouldn't let me do anything until this was excised.
> 
> this only goes up to like the first hourish or so of gameplay in AC2 bc i'm still working my way through the game
> 
> thank you to peri for the full beta and james for reading and cheering on

Desmond isn’t even sure how he’s here. 

He’s not here...physically, like usual. There isn’t even the strange third person effect he gets sometimes, of being both a part of his ancestor and also slightly behind and above. Altaïr was somehow much more palatable just outside of the range of others' disgust with him.

He can’t look around or move, everything is fixed like...like...

 _Like a cutscene_ , his mind supplies, and he almost snorts.

If he had a nose. 

Right.

There’s a woman on a bed and what must be a midwife between her legs, and Desmond watches because that’s all he can do. He’s struggling to remember how long labor is supposed to last when the sound in the room dies with a deep sigh. He waits, tries to look closer somehow, but his perspective remains fixed, and then he realizes:

There’s no crying.

The midwife holds the silent newborn, and even Desmond can see that it’s not breathing. He looks from face to face, trying to determine which one is his ancestor. There’s no instant recognition, not like with Altaïr, but then Altaïr was an entirely different beast altogether. A man rushes in and there’s a twist of familiarity, but it’s still not quite right.

“Am I late? Did I miss it?” He asks, in what Desmond knows is Italian, but is still perfectly understandable to him. Great, another language to forget he’s speaking.

The midwife is apparently unable to speak, just offers the silent, unbreathing infant up. The father takes him and Desmond aches at the warmth in his gaze as he looks down and murmurs, “You are an Auditore. You are a fighter. So fight.”

Something in Desmond twinges and before he’s aware of what’s happening he’s...moving, and watching the baby move and Jesus fucking Christ. There’s the recognition. Giovanni’s face lights up and Desmond almost, _almost_ misses his own father in the bright moment before Giovanni speaks again. “Listen to her! A fine set of lungs!”

Desmond whites out for the rest of the memory, and when he comes to Lucy’s looking at him with a hundred questions they don’t have time for.

He can’t believe he fucking misses _Alta_ _ï_ _r_ right now.

\- - -

Desmond spends some time needling Shaun while ignoring Lucy and Rebecca whispering behind him. He’s perfectly happy to leave them to it until he hears Rebecca say, a little too loud, “—maybe something wrong with the Animus? I can try and correct the code with ours, but it’s gonna take time.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the Animus,” Desmond sighs, sparing one more look at Shaun’s murder-history wall before turning to face them again.

“Desmond—” Lucy starts, ‘I know all’ tone full in force.

“It reads genetic memory,” Desmond interrupts, looking at Rebecca. It’s easier right now, he doesn’t...he doesn’t know her. Doesn’t...care as much; “Just genetics, right? Nothing else about body chemistry?”

“Right…” Rebecca says, but fuck, at least she’s listening, unlike Lucy who looks two seconds from talking over him _again_.

“Has Abstergo ever gone all the way from birth with an ancestor before?” Desmond has to ask, looking to Lucy.

“Well, no,” Lucy says, furrow in her brow, “The memories are usually very scattered and unclear. You’re the first subject we’ve gotten such total playback on—”

“Have all the subjects been men?” Desmond asks before she gets too caught up.

“Obviously,” Lucy says, irritation showing on her face, “The target ancestors were all men, we need a _genetic match_. For all their faults Abstergo knows the difference between X and Y.”

“Mm,” Desmond looks to the side, focusing on the view out the windows, “History has a way of getting things wrong.”

“Wrong.” Lucy’s tone is entirely flat.

Desmond shrugs, gestures at his chest, “Altaïr had...scars. Here. And our center of balance was the same. It...would make sense to me if this new one ended up being...like us.”

“Ezio,” Lucy whispers after a long moment of silence, “We’re trying to reach Ezio Auditore da Firenze. But they called her Elisabetta in the memory.”

“ _Piccola aquila_ ,” Desmond murmurs before he thinks about it. Lucy and Rebecca stare at him, and he can feel Shaun’s gaze on his back, “Fuck. It’s what Mama called me. Us. Him. Fuck.”

“Little Eagle,” Shaun says, loud in the quiet apartment. “Ezio, from the Greek aetos, meaning eagle.”

“So you’re…” Rebecca starts, then shrugs. “That explains _so much_ about the failures of Subjects One through Sixteen.”

Desmond laughs, and it feels like the Animus-engineered rush of finishing a mission.

\- - -

Altaïr hadn’t been entirely atypical in the Masyaf brotherhood from Desmond’s understanding. There’d been more than a few brothers running around who were Assassins first, men second. His scars weren’t as clean as Desmond’s, none of the others were either, but they were more effective than Desmond would have guessed for the time period. 

He’d used to pick through a comic shop in New York, and he remembered going through a few issues of _Y: The Last Man_ when it was coming out. If the Amazonian women of history were successfully ridding themselves of one breast, he supposes it’s not a huge stretch that men in Persia were able to get rid of both. Not that he wants to draw too many parallels between his life — lives — and comic books. That road leads to nothing but madness.

It had been weirdly comforting for Desmond. He was worried that having a dick, even a memory of one, would’ve been too much. But it was just Altaïr, who was a dick in and of himself. Altaïr who was a dipshit and never got laid in any of Desmond’s memories of him, so that wasn’t something he had to worry about. 

They’d washed a few times though, in streams on the side of the trail coming down the mountain Masyaf sat on. Desmond knew that Altaïr had scars like him, and no dick. It was, well.

Weirdly nice.

\- - -

“You’re a moron,” Federico says in the memory, pulling Desmond-Altaïr-Ezio up from the ground.

Ezio licks blood from his lip and grins, “Fighting words from the Auditore who’s not even fighting.”

“You’re the problem child.” Federico smiles, gripping Ezio’s chin for a better look. “I’m the role model here to look better next to you.”

“Ass,” Ezio says and hisses when Federico swipes his thumb across the wound.

“Moron,” he replies, entirely fond, “Finish up and we’ll see un dottore. This looks deep.”

“Grazie fratello,” Ezio blows a kiss, then whirls away into a new fight. Desmond tries to work out their coordination as best he can. Ezio is looser, more comfortable in his body than Altaïr or Desmond ever had been. Even with his chest bound he breathes freer, feels more expansive. 

Desmond-Altaïr-Ezio grins, just a little vicious, as they take another punch to the chin.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm usually yelling about robots on twitter [@floralpunkcfb](https://twitter.com/floralpunkcfb)


End file.
